Just the other day I caught up with a friend who had recently given birth for the second time. We sat in her kitchen and drank peppermint tea while she breastfed her baby, and we both watched her four-year-old lead my two children, ages three and five, in a rowdy game of dragon battles.
“Congratulations on your book,” she said, shouting over the noise. “How on earth did you manage it?”
Blushing, I batted the compliment away, but my friend persisted. “Seriously,” she said, “I can’t work it out. How did you write with kids around? I’m so tired, some days I can’t even see straight. I couldn’t imagine a worse time to be creative.”
I paused, trying to think of a way to respond. I looked at the shadows under my friend’s eyes, at her unbrushed hair and the vomit-stained muslin cloth slung over one shoulder, and I felt the weight of her exhaustion. I recalled the skin-tingling, semi-stoned sensation of sleep deprivation—the nausea, the inability to make decisions, the complete lack of control over your own mind and body. I knew exactly what it felt like to break down in the cereal aisle, completely overwhelmed by the choice between two different brands of oatmeal. Viewed in this light—or any light, really—my friend’s point is solid. How had I managed to write a book in that state? And why had I even bothered to try?
When I decided to give writing a proper go, my daughter was eight months old—but the idea for my novel had been swirling around in my head since before she was born. Interestingly, I’d made my very first plot notes when I was pregnant with my son, who is almost two years older. So why didn’t I start then, when life was quiet and relatively simple? Why did I wait until I had minus time, when mounting responsibilities and lack of sleep had all but broken me?
I had playdates but no hobbies. Nothing defined me but the kids.
Like many babies, my daughter was a terrible sleeper. And like my friend, I was so physically depleted that I couldn’t see straight. Every time I went to the supermarket, every time I got behind the wheel of our car, I thought, I’m not fit to do this. Not drive, not shop, not talk, not walk, not anything. Even worse: outside of being a mother, I had no idea who I was or what I was doing in the world. My identity had crashed. I felt like I had fallen through a wormhole and landed in another universe. My husband was, and still is, a wonderful and very hands-on dad, but his life hadn’t changed much, comparatively speaking. To the world at large, he was still a teacher, a surfer, a golfer, and an all-round great...
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